M a r k D i l l e y

I found this scribbled in a (my daughters) notebook on Saturday.
"All you have to do to qualify for human rights is to be human."

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Anderson, you know, I find it very interesting.

On June 13, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, put out a call, an informational bulletin, "Black Separatism a Volatile Movement of Node -- Node of Domestic Radicalization."

You know, I'm hearing from my sources that the seven arrests were made in Florida and here in Atlanta, Georgia. Now, as we know, Atlanta, Georgia, has been a hotbed of black separatist movement for a number of years.

And I find it very interesting that those two cities were involved. But, again, to say that there are 1,000 of these people that are al Qaeda sympathizers, I think that's maybe going out on a limb. Some of these groups that they mentioned in this particular report, Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, based in Detroit, the New Black Panther Nation, and Five Percenters, those are the ones that law enforcement right now are basically concerned with.

My sources will not say whether or not, at this point, because it is still sealed, whether or not these seven people had anything to do with any of these groups. And I will be very, very interested in the morning, Anderson, to find out whether or not the -- any of these groups do surface.

"If the abolition of slave-manacles

began as a vision of hands without manacles,

then this is the year;"

magine that a foreign army invades your country and drops a bomb on your house that kills your loved ones. You’re enraged, so you resist. But you’re overmatched by the occupiers’ firepower, so your only chance to dislodge them is to wreak havoc through asymmetrical warfare. Your opponents won’t call it that, though. They’ll call it terrorism. And once they own that word, they win.

An Iraqi man who lives near site of the bombing that lead to Zarqawi's death "told AP Television News on Friday that he saw U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the victim's nose,"

So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery -- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down…

So Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man, is dead. Maybe now we can finally kill off the myth too. The myth is that Zarqawi, a Jordanian jihadist who had moved his operations to Iraq in recent years, was one of the greatest threats to Western civilization, who had single-handedly been hampering progress in Iraq and spreading terror around the globe. In fact, Zarqawi was an isolated and fairly insignificant insurgent – or at least he had been, until American and British officials decided to transform him into an all-purpose bogeyman and brand him the most evil man in the world.

Zarqawi is the first leader of al-Qaeda who died in battle while fighting coalition forces; this simple fact gives him, in the eyes of the jihadist movement, almost a supernatural status.

Three men being held without trial by U.S. armed forces in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba took their own lives yesterday. And, in a truly Orwellian twist, U.S. Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the Commander of the Guantanamo facility, claims that their act “was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." Just when you thought that the "Orwellian" meme couldn't be pushed a inch farther, the come along and kick it another fucking mile.

The day after Arlen Specter suddenly drops making any sort of investigation into the legality of wiretapping American citizens, the Iraqi head of Al Quaeda is captured via wiretapping his cell phone?!? I've long expected Osama to turn up the week of elections.

Sort of like that Palestinian family of fanatics who got themselves killed by an Israel shell while picnicking on the beach. Will they stop at nothing??

Ted Rall explains why the reports of the Haditha massacre aren't provoking riots like the Danish cartoons and the Koran-in-the-crapper stories did:

Meanwhile, in the "new" Iraq, Abdel Salam al-Qubaisy of Iraq's Sunni Muslim Scholars Association says, U.S. massacres of civilians occur routinely. "The American soldier has become an expert in killing," he shrugs. Like many Iraqis, Baghdad shopkeeper Mohammed Jawdaat says that U.S. troops have never shown respect for the lives of Iraqi civilians. "Six months ago," remembers Jawdaat, "a car pulled out of a street towards an American convoy and a soldier just opened fire. The driver was shot in the head. There were no warning shots and the Americans didn't even stop."

Abd Mohammed Falah, a Ramadi attorney, says: "U.S. forces have committed more crimes against the Iraqi people than appears in the media. The U.S. defense secretary and his generals should be sent to court instead of two or three soldiers who will be scapegoats."

Newspapers don't bother to report when the sun rises in the east nor do they assign reporters to cover when dogs bite men. Likewise, says Baghdad newspaper boy Imad Mohammed, Iraqi newspapers haven't mentioned Haditha. Same-old, same-old massacres of Iraqis by American forces are no longer news: "The Americans see a Muslim go into a mosque and just assume he is a terrorist. They either arrest him or blow it up."

We. Just. Don't. Get. It.

We go on about our business and pretend nothing is wrong. But pretending does not change reality. Back to the point of why I sit alone tonight. While I may love my family out of obligation, I do not like the way they live their lives... and that goes for most of what I have seen of Americans. Perhaps it's not my right to judge, that's one way to frame it. Perhaps I'm being a selfish, judgmental, arrogant bastard. So be it.

This was posted some time ago at the TPM House of Labor blog, but I just reread it and thought it clever and on target, so am reposting it:

Even most liberals deny anti-union crime is widespread or deny that it's even a serious crime at all and anyways the folks doing it are such swell people, we can't expect us to like treat them like criminals, do you? If unions have been decimated in American workplaces, it's must really be their fault-- they must have been asking for it. You know, when you wear such pretty medical care and pension funds, employers are just being normal, red-blooded capitalists when they wipe out unions to get at them.

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So apparently on June 19th there is going to be a "continuity of government" exercise where thousands of Washington bureaucrats go to dispersed underground cans buried in the Allegheny mountains and elsewhere.

Remember the last time there was a large scale exercise of this nature? That would be Granite Shadow, a biowar exercise. Coincidentally, during Granite Shadow, tularemia was detected in the air above an anti-war demonstration.

Before that, the last large exercise was Vigilant Guardian/Northern Vigilance, wherein Norad stood down. That happened to be the morning of 9/11.

Do I think the end of civilization is going to happen? No, because I think this crew wouldn't want to kill off their cattle. But how surprising would it be to anybody if something happened the day of that planned "exercise?" Support for the war is waning, and the GOP need to do something-- desperately-- because if they don't they're going to lose their positions and likely their freedom.

An invitation

Road trip to Chicago for Omidyar conference

Two-and-a-half day open space unconference + community mashup. Leaders and organizers, activists and instigators will be discussing issues important to them and networking. See last year’s proceedings for an idea of what might happen, although the contents of this year’s proceedings will be determined by whomever shows up.

• Where: Oak Park, IL


• When: July 14, 15, and 16



• How much: as cheap as we can make it

Logistics

2 confirmed Ann Arbor attendees, wanna be #3?

About open space

Open space is a way of running a meeting that lets attendees do the things they want, and is worth checking out just for the experience.

About the Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a mission-based investment group committed to fostering individual self-empowerment on a global scale. The Network funds for-profits, non-profits and public policy efforts that promote:

• Equal access to information, tools and opportunities


• Rich connections around shared interests


• A sense of ownership for participants

And here’s the official invitation to this conference.

The parents of two US Marines said their sons were left traumatised after being asked to clean up the mess. One of the men, Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones, said he had taken photos quickly confiscated by investigators and carried bodies out of homes.

"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," he said. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood."